Paltrow, Gwyneth
Identification American actor
Born September 27, 1972; Los Angeles, California
Although her first film role was not until 1991, by the end of
the decade Paltrow had won an Academy Award for Best
Actress, cementing her reputation as one of the most tal-
ented young actors of her generation.
Gwyneth Paltrow assumed from a young age that she
would be an actor, playing several small roles as a
child at the Williamstown Theatre Festival alongside
her parents, director Bruce Paltrow and actor Blythe
Danner. In 1991, Paltrow enrolled at the University
of California at Santa Barbara, but her performance
in the playPicnicconvinced her parents that she
should pursue acting full time. That same year, she
landed a small role as the young Wendy in Steven
Spielberg’sHook, followed by parts inMalice(1993)
andFlesh and Bone(1993).
Although Paltrow was given increasingly larger
parts in several films during the mid-1990’s, includ-
ingSeven(1995) with Brad Pitt, her talent was not
widely recognized until she won the coveted title
role inEmma(1996), a remake of the classic Jane
Austen novel. Paltrow’s performance as the incur-
able matchmaker was praised for her comedic tim-
ing and authentic British accent, and she followed
that film’s success with no fewer than five movies re-
leased in 1998:Sliding Doors,Great Expectations,Hush,
A Perfect Murder, andShakespeare in Love.
InShakespeare in Love, perhaps best described as
period romantic comedy, Paltrow portrayed Viola
de Lesseps, a fictional noblewoman whose star-
crossed romance with William Shakespeare inspires
him to write the playRomeo and Juliet(pr. c. 1595-
1596).Shakespeare in Lovewon the Academy Award
for Best Picture, and Paltrow’s luminous perfor-
mance earned her both an Academy Award and a
Golden Globe. In the summer of 1999, she returned
triumphantly to the Williamstown Theatre Festival,
where she earned rave reviews as Rosalind in Shake-
speare’sAs You Like It(pr. c. 1599-1600).
Having won an Academy Award at such a young
age, Paltrow felt free to pursue projects that inter-
ested her without concern about commercial suc-
cess. At the same time, she had already begun to slow
the frantic pace of her career, due in part to her
highly publicized broken engagement with Brad Pitt
in 1997 as well as to her father’s cancer diagnosis.
Paltrow rounded out the decade withThe Talented
Mr. Ripley(1999) and also began filming a long-
delayed project directed by her father titledDuets,
which was ultimately released in 2000. Although
the film flopped commercially, Paltrow was widely
praised for her vocal talents. In addition, although
she found the experience emotionally difficult in
light of her father’s continuing health issues, she rel-
ished the opportunity to work with him before his
death in 2002.Impact Gwyneth Paltrow’s career experienced an
almost meteoritic rise during the 1990’s, from her
first small movie roles in 1991 to an Academy Award
for Best Actress in 1999 at the age of twenty-six.
Her consistently strong performances earned both
critical and popular acclaim, and in 2000 she was
named one ofPremieremagazine’s “Power Elite” on
the strength of her work in the 1990’s.658 Paltrow, Gwyneth The Nineties in America
Gwyneth Paltrow receives the Academy Award for Best Actress for
her role in the 1998 filmShakespeare in Love.(AP/Wide
World Photos)